Transcript

Tech-Start-Ups are the life-blood of entrepreneurship, right? Wrong.
Hi, I’m Carmen Sognonvi.
Keep watching because in this video I’m going to explain why I think Tech-Start-Ups are actually destroying entrepreneurship, and I’ll show you how you need to think differently if you want to be successful in business.

By the way, if you’d like to get a list of the seven tools I rely on to run all of the marketing in my business, head on over to CarmenSognonvi.com/tools. There I’ll share with you everything from who we use for graphic design and printing, and I’ll tell you about a cool app that you can use to track how your flyers are being distributed.

Imagine you’re in a coffee-shop and you over-hear this conversation:

“Hey, Carmen! How’s it going?”

“Hey! I’m doing great! Guess what? I just got a twenty thousand dollar line of credit on my credit card. Isn’t that awesome?”

“Oh,my God! You’re so wealthy!”

“I know!”

Okay, so that would seem ridiculous, right? After all, the twenty thousand dollars doesn’t belong to me.

It’s just that someone at this credit card company has said, “hey, hold onto this twenty thousand. I’m giving it to you in the knowledge that you’re going to pay me back with more money on top of that.

That’s not making me wealthy. The sad thing is the equivalent of this conversation is happening every single day in the business media.

How often have you read about a founder of a cool tech-start-up that’s being lauded for being successful, and the only proof of that success is that they’ve managed to raise X amount of million dollars in venture capital?
Here’s the thing: If you manage to raise money for your company, that’s great! There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s just the beginning.

We’re at this really strange phase in history where people seem to equate raising money with actual success in business, without realizing that’s just the first step. Now, you actually have to take that and go make money.

Before I continue, I just want to make it clear that I am not against venture capital. I know that there are many businesses out there that can’t be boot-strapped.

You need to have venture capital to get things off the ground, and that’s totally fine. There’s nothing wrong with that.

What I do have a problem with though, is that people are acting as if venture capital is the end game. Perfect example of this is: I was reading recently about LearnVest.

LearnVest is a start-up that has been lauded all over the place. They’ve been written up everywhere from Entrepreneur, to Inc., Business Week. Every publication you can imagine.

The founder has been on pretty much every magazine cover. She keynotes conferences all over the place.

This is a company that’s had a lot of buzz. I was just reading that they’ve been acquired by Northwestern Mutual. One thing that was really, really interesting in the article is if you read between the lines of the press release that was issued about this, you’ll realize that LearnVest raised over 75 million dollars in venture capital.

That was basically the basis of a lot of this hype and a lot of this media attention. But, if you read the press release that was issued surrounding the acquisition, you’ll realize that the company generated less than 2.2 million dollars in revenue.

Just to put that into perspective: that’s probably the same amount that a popular bakery in your neighborhood makes. I’m guessing they didn’t have to raise 75 million dollars to do it.

The reason that I think tech-start-ups are really destroying entrepreneurship is because we’re raising this generation of entrepreneurs that thinks the point of business is to raise money.

They are really good at raising money, talking people into investing in them, but they have absolutely no idea how to make money. That’s a real problem.

Let’s say that you started a business and your end goal is to sell this business. You actually don’t care about making money. Because you’re just making something that you know is going to be really valuable that you know it’s going to get acquired.

You know what? That’s totally fine. Say, a business acquires you and you never generated any revenue, but they acquired you anyway. You walk away with a big sum of money.

Congratulations. That’s awesome. But, guess what? You didn’t build a business. You built a product.

Because, business’s actually generate revenue and hopefully generate profit. So, what you did was you built a product that was very valuable. That was something that this other business knew that they wanted for themselves because they would have a way to make money using it.

But, you built a product, not a business. That means you’re not and entrepreneur, you’re an inventor.

It’s no different than inventing some kind of gadget that gets sold on infomercials. You know, there’s nothing wrong with it, but understand that there’s a difference.

What should you take away from this? Well, if you’re flipping through business magazines and you find yourself comparing yourself to the founders that you see on these magazine covers, please stop.

It’s not the right success metric for you. Understand that the founders of these tech-start-ups live in a very specific world with a very specific set of rules.

In their world, the only way they get cash in the door, is not by selling their product or service to a consumer, it’s by raising more investment capital.

They need to do this round, after round, after round. Every round has to value them at a higher valuation. Otherwise, they’re going to see their reputation change in the marketplace. That’s not going to work well for them.

Part of that game is they have to keep building this buzz machine around themselves. Part of that is being really prominent in the media, on the conference scene, and getting their name out there on a constant basis, because this is part of how they generate cash.

You’re probably in a of business where you generate cash the “old fashioned way.” By actually selling stuff, right?

Understand there are tons of companies out there that are absolutely killing it. That are doing seven figures, eight figures, nine figures that we’ll never read about in the business media because they are not seeking media attention. They don’t need it.

They’re doing just fine by actually selling their products or services to customers who are happily paying top dollar for that.

If you find yourself comparing your business those that you read in magazines, stop. You need to decide on the correct metrics to measure your own success.

If you are not a tech-start-up, you don’t need to be measuring your success in terms of how many millions of dollars of venture capital you raised.

Now, if you’re in the very early stages of your business, then maybe it is suitable for you to measure some success by how much capital you’ve raised. That is going to take you to the next level. Understand that this is not the end goal. This is the end goal.

How are you going to take that capital, then build revenue, and then build a profitable business. That’s the end goal.

Please, do yourself a favor and understand that you need to define success by the correct metrics. Those correct metrics usually have to do with revenue and profits.

If you found this video useful I would encourage you to get email updates from me. Just head on over to CarmenSognonvi.com/newsletter and sign up there.

If you have a question for me that you’d like me to answer in a future video, just email it to me at info@CarmenSognonvi.com

It’s time for some shou-outs! We’re doing another Instagram edition. If you’re not already following me on Instagram, I am @CarmenSognonvi

Be sure to find me there. Today I would like to shout-out:
@DigitalChick
@JenHoustonSolari
@JoshuaMichaelPaterson
@WilliamKingII

Thank you to all of you for your lovely comments. I’ve linked to all of their profiles below, so be sure to check them out.

Transcript

Are you having a hard time selling to small businesses? Are you getting door slammed in your face because small business owners donít want to hear your sales pitch? Hi, Iím Carmen Sognonvi. I recently got an email from a viewer whoís struggling with that exact issue in his business. Keep watching to see what advice I have for him.

By the way, if you want to get a list of the seven tools I rely on to run all of the marketing in my business, head on over to carmensognonvi.com/tools. Iíll tell you everything from who we use for graphic design and printing and Iíll even share with you a mobile app that allows you to track how your fliers are being distributed.

Todayís question comes from a viewer weíll call ìRonî who lives in northwest Arkansas. He writes, ìHi Carmen, Iíve spent 30 years as a photographer for an agency, but recently struck out on my own. I thought it would be a good idea to visit all the local merchants in my small town to let them know about my business photography services, but they havenít been receptive at all. Apart from a few non-confrontational types, everyone else has been either rude or apathetic. In my previous career, my job was to be the number 2 man through the door who delivered the services after they were already sold. Iím starting to wonder if I just donít have what it takes to the first man through the door for my own business. What do you think? Thanks, Ron.î

Well Ron, you have my sympathies. Because truth be told, selling to small business owners is one of the toughest gigs on earth. I know this from experience. Not because only I am a small business owner myself and I know how I treat sales people to be frank. But I have actually been in a sales position where my job was to sell advertising to small business owners in the home decoration, home maintenance kind of industry. And it was really, really tough. So, youíre not alone.

Here are three ideas that I would share with you that may help you get better results.

1) Donít walk in or call.
Now this make take you by surprise because you might think ìWell if I donít walk in or call, how am I going to make contact with them?î Well there are other ways. But let me first explain why walking in or calling is a bad idea. Number one: Walking In. As soon as someone walks through my door, I know immediately that they are there to sell me. Within one second I look at that guy and his cheap suit and his ugly leather portfolio thing and I am immediately on the defensive because I know heís trying to sell me something that I donít want and my only primary objective is to get him out of my business as quickly as possible. That is the harsh truth.

Now if someone is calling instead of walking in, this is usually whatís happening on the other side of the line. In other words, youíre calling you know whatís happening on your end, on my end it looks like this. Iím talking to a parent of one of our students, the phone rings, I pick it up I excuse myself, I pick it up itís a salesperson. Heís trying to sell me something. The longer that I talk to this guy the more waiting my studentís parent has to do. So my primary objective is to get off the phone. Now even when I am not actually, physically face to face with a customer at that point that the phone rings, I still want to get him off the phone immediately. You know why? Because the longer I spend on the phone with him, the longer it takes for a potential prospect to not be able to get through and call my business. So, I never want to stay on the phone with a sales person. Because he is disrupting my business, heís getting in the way of me actually making money and delivering my service. So, that is why I recommend that you do not call and you do not simply walk in unannounced.

So what should you do instead? I would actually recommend doing cold emails. Now, you may think to yourself ìOh but are small business owners really on email? They donít seem very tech-savvy. Blah, blah, blah. I think this is a huge misconception. People tend to think that just because you own a bricks and mortar business means that youíre some kind of Luddite dinosaur. Itís just not true. A lot of us are extremely tech-savvy and are running our businesses online in terms of communication. So, donít assume that just because someone has a bricks and mortar business they are not savvy enough to have an email account and know how to work that thing. Ok? Weíre using email. Trust me. Now the reason that email is so much better than calling or walking in is because itís so much less disruptive. When I sit down to check my email, Iím there for a reason. I am in kind of like a processing mode where Iím going through and reading things. And itís on my own time. So, itís not like Iím in the middle of something and then the phone rings and I have to stop what Iím doing to look at that. Iím already in my inbox, so Iím there to check email.

2) Donít copy and paste.
What I mean by that is donít just write up a bland sales pitch and then copy and paste the same thing over and over again to every single business. What you want to do instead is actually start with picking one particular type of business or industry. So, for example, restaurants. Now, you want to actually hone in on a particular problem and explain why what you offer can be a solution. So, youíre in the photography business. One thing you could do, for example, is to email a restaurant and say ìHi, I noticed that on your yelp page you have fewer than ten reviews. It could be possible that this low amount of activity is because you donít have any photos of your dishes on your yelp page or on your website. Studies have shown that restaurants with photos of their dishes get 50% more reviews than restaurants that donít have photos.î Something like that. I made up that statistic, by the way.

Basically, you want to point out a specific problem that you see potentially and explain how your service can actually solve that problem. Because the thing is with photography, business owners donít lay awake at night in bed thinking ìIf only I had better pictures!î Thatís just not something that happens. Now photography, we know itís important, we know itís nice to have but it tends to be on the bottom of the priority list. I mean even in our business at Urban Martial Arts, we are very visually driven and Iím all about good design and branding. And even with us, itís been 3 years since we did our last photo shoot, in terms of the karate program. So, even I whoís very visually inclined, am procrastinating big time on getting new photos done. So, the more that you can pinpoint a pain point and explain how your service can help with that, the better off youíll be.

3) Donít forget to make an offer.
Now, one of the best ways to get an actual response to your email is to have some kind of an offer with a price tag attached. In other words, donít make me have to guess how much youíre going to charge for that because itís too much work for me. If Iím just going through those emails that opening paragraph that you have about ìHey I noticed you donít have photos thatís contributing to your lack of yelp reviewsî thatís going to intrigue me. But Iím not going to be intrigued enough to go over to your website and to fill out a form to request a quote, so that I have to have a long boring phone call with you and find out finally how much itís going to cost. Give me some pricing information right away. Now it doesnít have to be your entire price list but put together some kind of trial offer package that they can get behind. And that in and of itself could actually be kind of a sales point for you. Because in your email you could say something along the lines of ìHey you may have thought that professional photography was out of your budget because you are a small business. But we actually have a small business starter package where you can get 50 photos for just $4.99.î Something like that, whatever the appropriate price would be for you. Now suddenly, I have a price in mind I can think about ìHmm, does this make sense to invest in?î

And hereís another secret that Iíll let you in on Ron, small business owners may tell you that they have a marketing budget, but really we donít have marketing budgets. We have a rough idea of how much we spend on marketing each month but if something cool comes along and we think itís worth investing in we will find the money to pay for it. Thatís how it is. Because, guess what? We run the show. We are the boss. We donít have to get it approved by 14 corporate layers. We pull the trigger. We make the decision. So just because someone says ìOh itís out of our marketing budget.î Thatís just means that theyíre not interested. If they are actually interested they will find the money to pay for it. So thatís an insider tip for you.

So now that you followed those 3 tips, one thing that you want to keep in mind is donít forget to follow up. This is really, really important because guess what? The fortune is in the follow up. Youíve probably heard that phrase. The first email that you send is going to be very easy for me to ignore. When you follow up with me a first time, Iím going to think to myself ìHuh, alright maybe I should respond.î If you follow up with me a second time and I didnít respond to you the first time, then Iím going to be like ìWow! This person is really standing out from the crowd. He is really following up.î And at that point Iím probably either going to get back to you and have a conversation or Iím going to let know that this is something Iím definitely not interested in because I donít want to hear from you anymore. But either way you have a specific answer; you have a response which is better than no response at all. So, donít be afraid to follow up if you donít hear back. I would follow up at least 4 times. So you send the initial email and then send 4 follow ups. And leave anywhere from 3 to 5 business days in between each follow up. So if you donít get a response then follow up. Because weíre busy and just because we donít respond the first time doesnít mean weíre not interested. Maybe we are but we werenít interested enough to kind of leap off our chair and get back to you right away. But if you keep following up then youíre going to see much better results.

Ok! So if you found this video useful, I would encourage you to get email updates from me. Just head on over to carmensognonvi.com/newsletter and sign up there. And if you have a question you would like me to answer in a future video just email it to me at info@carmensognonvi.com.

Ok, itís time for some shout outs and weíre doing another Instagram edition. So, if youíre not already following me over there my handle is @carmensognonvi. So I want to shout out @fullertonphoto, @deliachristianastamate, @growthhackwizard, and @roseann517 who is actually a parent at our karate school. So thanks for following me there Roseann. Thank you all for your lovely comments. Iíve linked up to their profiles below so the rest of you be sure to check them out. And again thanks for watching.

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Transcript

I recently got an email from a viewer who is struggling with that exact question.

Keep watching to find out what advice I have for her.

By the way, if you want to get a list of all the of the tools I use to run the marketing in my own business, head on over to Carmensognovi.com/tools.

I’ll share with you everything from who we use for graphic design and printing, and I’ll even tell you about an app you can use to track that your flyers are being distributed the right way.

This question comes from a viewer we’ll call Alice. Alice lives in Iowa and this is what she writes:

Hi Carmen,
I opened a jewelry business 5 years ago. The thing that I struggle with the most is motivating staff to become more self sufficient. I want them to think outside the box, and I want to encourage them to provide the best customer service possible. How can I do that?
Thanks, Alice.

So, Alice, customer service is definitely one of those things that a lot of business owners struggle with, and I think that one of the common misconceptions is that its all about training, right? People think that if you train your staff properly, then you’re going to deliver better customer service and that’s actually just not enough. So in this video I’m going to break down three things that you should implement in your business to empower your staff to be able to deliver the kind of service that you’re looking for.

1. Customer Happiness Allowance

You may have heard about this, but the Ritz Carlton hotel, chain, which is probably the best hotel chains in the world, they have a really interesting policy which is they empower every single employee on their staff to be able to spend up to 2,000 to make a customer happy.

They don’t have to get permission. They wont get in trouble by doing it.
They are automatically given the authority to spend up to 2,000 if they feel like it’s going to contribute to a better experience for a customer. That’s what I mean by customer happiness allowance.

So think about how to implement this in your business. The dollar amount may be different for you. It may be lower. It may even be higher. Who knows? You may own a jewelry business. But the key is to think about whether it makes sense to empower your employees to be able to spend up to a certain amount of money as long as they feel that’s going to help improve the experience that a customer is having.

2. Standard Operating Procedures.

So there’s a great book by Sam Carpenter called Work The System. I’m going to link it below. I would definitely encourage you to check out that book.

Basically, Carpenter argues that you need to think about your business as a series of systems and every system should have a written documentation of how things are done, which basically are standard operating procedures. Some people call it SOPS for short.

And so think about in your business, you want to standardize the way things are done.
They probably are somewhat standardized already, right? I’m sure you have a certain way that you expect people to answer the phone. I’m sure that if someone comes in looking for an engagement ring, there’s a certain process that you go through in order to determine which rings to show to that customer.

But, in many businesses, these processes and systems are not actually documented.
So what you want to ideally get to, and this is something I’m working on in my own business, is document every single process in every single system.

Now, this doesn’t have to be something that you do yourself. You can actually have your tean members start documenting the processes that they use on a regular basis in their own positions. So, you are all working together to create the standard operating procedures.

Now, why would this help with customer service? Well, for one thing, it would standardize the experience that customers have so no one is free styling and doing their own thing. Everyone is clear on exactly how things are supposed to be done.

At first you may think this seems very restrictive on the employees- that we’re forcing them to do everything a certain way. But actually Carpenter argues that the opposite is true. Employees find that this is actually very freeing. and the reason this is freeing is because if they follow the process and there is still a bad repercussion then the problem is with the system and not with the employee.

So it really takes that blame factor out of it and it really focuses everyone on thinking ok how can we prevent this mistake from happening again in the future? There must be something we need to improve in our system or in our process and so that really takes the personal blame out of the matter and everyone’s focused on making the organization better as a whole.

3. Core Values

In your business you probably have a certain set of values that you go by, right?
Whether it is personal beliefs or the way you operate as a company, there’s probably a set of values and by values I don’t mean scripts and procedures on how to do certain things.
I mean, generally overriding principles and values that you guys really believe in.
But, are those written down? If not, you should really think of boiling those down into 3 to 5, no more than 10, core values that really represent what your brand and your company stands for.

And the reason this is important and the way it ties back to customer service is there will be situations where your employees are dealing with a circumstance that hasn’t been planned for. That they haven’t been trained in, that you guys haven’t set up a system yet.

And now they need to make a decision as to how they handle that situation.
If you have a set of core value, they can use that as their framework for making
the right decision because they can think to themselves, “Ok I’ve got options a, b, and c in terms of ways I can respond to this situation.” Which are the ways that would align most with our values?

Which of them would really communicate what we stand for? You know, what would my boss do in this situation, based on the values that I know she holds? So that’s why the core values document is really important and one that you should definitely implement.

If you found this video useful, I would encourage you to sign up to get email updates from me. Just head on over to carmensognovi.com/newsletter

And if you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future video just email it to me at info@carmensognovi.com

Ok, it’s time for some shout outs and this time I’m actually going to be shouting out some of my instagram followers who were kind enough to leave comments on some of my recent posts. So, if you are not already following me on instagram, be sure to do that. I’m @carmensognovi.

So, I want to send shout outs to the spasb, to mikellan19, to doctorlovejones and the imagination spot. I thank all of you for your lovely comments. I’ve linked up to you guys below so the rest of you, make sure you check them out. Thanks for watching!

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I wasn’t worried, because I had been backing our files up to an external hard drive. Only when I went to look at the hard drive, I realized that I’d only backed up a small portion of our files. The rest of was lost. Forever.

Now, some local businesses will need more hard drive space than others.

If you’re a print shop or a photography studio, you probably deal with hundreds of large files every day for your clients.

If you’re a bakery or a martial arts school (like us!), you probably don’t have that many client files to deal with.

BUT if you’re active in content marketing, you probably have lots of valuable photos and videos you need to store safely.

That’s where WD My Cloud EX2 comes in.

Here are five reasons your local business should consider using a private cloud storage option like WD My Cloud EX.

1. There’s no monthly cost

Cloud storage services like Dropbox are convenient, but they make you pay a monthly fee. With WD My Cloud EX, you just purchase it one time and that’s it! No monthly fees to pay, ever.

2. You get TONS of space

Dropbox Pro is the most affordable paid option they offer, but you only get 1 TB. The smallest version of WD My Cloud EX has 4TB, but you can purchase one that has a whopping 8 TB!

3. It’s faster

Loading your files to the WD My Cloud EX is much faster than uploading it to a cloud storage service like Dropbox. For local business owners like us, time is money. All those minutes you save add up!

4. It backs up wirelessly

Unlike traditional external hard drives, the WD My Cloud EX backs up your files wirelessly. That means it doesn’t have to be plugged into your computer to work, meaning fewer cables to make a mess.

5. It reduces your stress

Business owners like us have enough stress. The last thing you need to add to your list of things to worry about is backing up your files. The WD My Cloud EX gives you peace of mind, knowing that your files are safe and sound.

Get free marketing tips from Carmen

If you found this video useful, enter your email address below and click “Yes, Send Me Tips!” to get free tips from me on how to run a successful local, bricks-and-mortar business: